I’m now 71 years old. My photo shows my mother and me, taken on Mother’s Day (the second Sunday in May), 2024. I was a first child, born just before my mom’s 22nd birthday, in 1954. The pregnancy and my birth were uneventful and full-term. I was diagnosed with CP when I was 14 months old. The pediatrician told my parents it was God’s will.
I have mild ataxic hemiparesis on the right. I grew up mostly independent, but a loner, more comfortable with adults, because it was hard to keep up with other girls. While growing up in the 1950s–1970s, I never believed I “should” (or could), become as a grown woman what other, “normal” American girls would: married and a mom.
I surprised myself and my family by marrying. I was 31. An “old” first-marriage woman in the mid-1980s.
We chose to get married six months from my birthday, April 6.
My wedding date? October 6, 1985.